SWITZERLAND - Perhaps the most alarming proposition from Davos is the idea of creating a new international crime: ecocide. Equating fertilizing lawns with war crimes and crimes against humanity is not only misguided but dangerous. Imagine for a moment if every real-life Bond villain decided not to hatch his evil plans in a secret lair, but instead broadcast them to the entire globe. That will give you a small idea of the messages that came out of the Word Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. The global elites want to upend life as you know it, and they are not even trying to hide it. Here is just a sample of the recent proposals pushed.

MIDDLE EAST - Israeli strikes in Lebanon, Houthi attacks on the Red Sea and Iranian missiles fired on Iraq: The risk of escalation in the Middle East is growing. If the Middle East were a blank piece of blotting paper and the wars and crises in the region were blots of ink, it would be easy to see that the dots are rapidly multiplying. The Gaza Strip, the border area between Lebanon and Israel, Erbil in northern Iraq, the mountains of western Yemen and the Red Sea. Some of the inkblots are growing. They remain separated from each other, but when the first ones begin merging, the risk grows that they will all join together. That the Middle East – from Israel to Iran, from Lebanon to Yemen – will sink into war.

MIDDLE EAST - The crisis In the Red Sea Threatens to disrupt global supply chains even more than the pandemic did. Do you remember the supply chain problems that we experienced during the darkest days of the COVID pandemic? Well, now we are being warned that the crisis in the Red Sea could actually disrupt global supply chains to an even greater degree. Needless to say, this comes at a really bad time because the US economy has really been struggling lately. The US and the UK are desperate to resolve this crisis, and so they have been bombing the living daylights out of the Houthis in Yemen. We haven’t seen anything quite like this from the US military since the early days of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

ISRAEL - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the conditions set by Hamas to end the ongoing war and secure the release of hostages. The Palestinian militant organization demanded that Israel withdraw its forces from Gaza, end the war, release all prisoners, and leave Hamas intact, Netanyahu said. “In exchange for the release of our hostages, Hamas demands the end of the war, the withdrawal of our forces from Gaza, the release of all the murderers and rapists, and leaving Hamas intact,” Netanyahu also stated. He added that he rejects the terms of surrender of Hamas outright.

ISRAEL - The Israeli prime minister has openly contradicted the US president's insistence on Palestinian statehood. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he refuses to compromise with Washington on a potential two-state solution for post-war Gaza – despite US President Joe Biden’s insistence that the pair were in agreement, after speaking by telephone for the first time in a month. Biden claimed after the phone conversation on Friday that a two-state solution was not impossible under Israel's current government, insisting there were multiple types of solutions that could fit the bill. “In the future, the state of Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea. This is what happens when you have sovereignty,” the prime minister told reporters during a televised press conference, referring to the Jordan River and the Red Sea - boundaries that many Palestinians consider to be the borders of their own rightful state.

MIDDLE EAST - Senior Hamas official Khaled Mashaal has dismissed the possibility of a two-state solution and said that his terror group’s devastating October 7 assault on Israel proved that liberating Palestine “from the river to the sea” is a realistic idea. In an interview with Kuwaiti podcaster Ammar Taki last week, Mashaal, a former top leader of the terror group, said that there is “nearly a consensus” among Palestinians that they will not give up their rights to the land stretching “from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea” — that is, the West Bank, Gaza and all of Israel. Mashaal noted that the slogan is also regularly chanted at rallies by “American students and in European capitals,” and said that the October 7 onslaught has “revived that dream.” The Hamas bigwig categorically rejected the option of a political settlement with Israel and a two-state solution to the conflict, on the grounds that it would imply recognizing the legitimacy of the State of Israel, an “unacceptable” red line for the terror movement.

UK - After his brilliant, unconventional tactics had helped to secure victory for the Allies in the Middle East at the end of the First World War, Lawrence of Arabia was summoned by an Australian general. Colonel T E Lawrence, just 30 years old and a visionary soldier, expected to be congratulated for his efforts. Instead, the general unleashed a foul-mouthed tirade, warning him that if he didn’t ensure that electricity and running water were immediately restored in Damascus – now part of Syria – the city would collapse back into war and chaos. A century on, the West needs to learn that very lesson.

RUSSIA - The Russian Air Force has begun to carry out joint aerial patrols with Syrian planes at the Syrian-Israeli border along the Golan Heights, a Russian representative in Syria announced last week. “To monitor the situation, army aviation units of the Russian Aerospace Forces have organized aerial patrols along the disengagement line separating the armed forces of Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic (the Bravo Line),” said Rear-Admiral Vadim Kulit last Thursday. Kulit is the deputy chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Warring Parties in Syria, a Russian-Turkish organization with the stated aim of speeding up peace negotiations between the Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad and opposition groups. Ever since Russia has increased its presence in Syria, Israel and Russia have been in close coordination to enable Israel to continue its alleged airstrikes against Iranian infrastructure and weapons deliveries in Syria.

CHINA - For Beijing, it’s not so much about replacing the greenback within the current system but creating an entirely separate alternative. Barely a day goes by without a headline about the Chinese yuan gaining further traction in global trade. As de-dollarization gains steam, the currency of the world’s second largest economy has been thrust into the spotlight. The dollar paradigm assumes any serious currency must be supported by a framework of full financial liberalization and open and deep capital markets. In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that China seeks not to carve out for the yuan a bit more room in the current Western-led system – or even dethrone the dollar and install the yuan in its place – but to create ‘from the ground-up’ the financial infrastructure that insures national sovereignty and protection from the vulnerabilities of the increasingly mismanaged dollar-based system. And it hardly needs mentioning that China is far from alone on this path.

RUSSIA - 95% of trade between the countries is now settled in their national currencies, according to Andrey Belousov. Western currencies have been almost completely phased out in Russia-China trade, as nearly all payments between the countries are now carried out in rubles and yuan, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov announced on Monday. Since the introduction of Western sanctions on Moscow, Russia and China have accelerated the use of their own currencies in trade. According to Belousov, 95% of all transactions between Russia and China are now carried out in one of the countries' national currencies, and given the rapid expansion of mutual trade and cooperation, this percentage is likely to grow.

USA - The US faces a global movement to join the Russia-China-controlled BRICS trade group away from G10-controlled SWIFT, to remove the dollar as the world’s currency. While most predictions claim it will be a slow process, not everyone agrees. Among the greater BRICS de-dollarization plans, one expert has predicted big challenges for the US Dollar in 2024. Indeed, the expansion of the economic alliance has certainly created an obstacle for the greenback. Subsequently, many expect the trouble to begin as soon as this year. The US will be a lot poorer and far less powerful if this continues and it has momentum. So, will China and Russia rule the world? Is it either these brutal dictators or Wokes? Is that our choice?

RUSSIA - The US currency is being used to undermine the competitive rights of other countries, Russia’s foreign minister says. The US dollar is being used as an instrument for regime change and interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and “everyone” is “tired” of the greenback, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, stated on Thursday. The global trend towards using national currencies in trade instead of the US dollar began to gain momentum last year after Ukraine-related sanctions saw Russia cut off from the Western financial system and also saw its foreign reserves frozen.

USA - A fifth of global supplies were sold and purchased using other currencies, according to analysts’ estimates. Global consumers and exporters of crude are now managing without dollar-denominated trade deals, the Wall Street Journal reported this week, citing the head of global commodities strategy at JPMorgan Chase, Natasha Kaneva. The report comes a day after Iran and Russia, two of the world’s leading oil exporters, said they have finalized an agreement to trade in their national currencies instead of the US dollar. Moreover, the sanction-hit states have found buyers for their commodities in China and India, selling them at a generous discount.

CHNA - The Chinese currency has topped the Japanese yen in international transactions, according to data. The Chinese yuan has risen to become the fourth most active currency for global payments by value in November 2023, the latest transaction data compiled by global financial messaging service SWIFT has shown. According to the report issued this week, the renminbi (yuan) was used in 4.61% of transactions, climbing from 3.60% in October and overtaking the Japanese yen’s share, which slipped to 3.41% from 3.91%. The growing share of the yuan in cross-border transactions reflects China’s trend of shifting away from the dollar, as well as Beijing’s efforts to promote the use of its national currency, the report said.

CHINA - Western restrictions imposed on Moscow have boosted the Chinese currency, Oleg Deripaska claims. The share of Chinese yuan in global payments has nearly doubled because of the sanctions policies pursued by the US and the EU, Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska said on Wednesday. The aluminum magnate referred to a report in the Financial Times, which cited figures showing that global settlements carried out in the Chinese currency had gone from 1.9% in January 2023 to 3.6% in October. “The number of worldwide transactions made in Chinese yuan has doubled over the past year, highlighting the extreme success of European and American sanctions policies,” Deripaska said IN A SARCASTIC REMARK on his Telegram channel.